Monday, July 18, 2011

movie review: tree of life.

I'm 100% qualified to write a review on this movie for the following reasons: I saw the movie and I can form sentences.

Let's start with stars.

I'm giving this movie 1 out of 13 stars. The 1 star is for location, location, location! There are just NOT enough movies set in Waco, Texas these days!

Let's move on to hearts.

I'm giving this movie 3 out of 8 hearts.

There was a lot of love in this movie. And a lot of talk of love in this movie. And I learned a lot about love. For example: if you have to ask your son if he, "loves his father?" it's likely that he does not love his father.

Now on to the review:

Admittedly, I walked into the movie knowing very little of the premise. But, more than one person that I like said this movie was "amazing," coupled with the facts that Brad Pitt rarely makes terrible movies and Sean Penn has won an Oscar, I thought, "let's do it."

I would've watched 2 hours of "My Little Pony Goes to Middle School" before I'd attempt to watch this film again.

The movie starts out with some scripture from Job. Who doesn't love a good Job reference, right? From that moment on I was confused. And not just a little confused, but the kind of confused where you say a really terrible word. You know like, "What the blank is happening?"

The opening scene shows us two parents getting the news that one of their children has died. Then, we meet up with Sean Penn and his wife? And his wife cut a branch off of a tree before heading out to work for the day. Just some light gardening. Nothing serious. That scene was followed by approximately 28 minutes of waterfalls, volcanoes erupting, waves crashing to shore, clouds, flowers and then suddenly, FINALLY, we see a dinosaur on the shore of what looks to be Galveston. The dinosaur has been hurt! He has been bitten by a shark! Then we see sharks. Then, it's back to nature! Then, we see some more dinosaurs frolicking in a stream near the Idaho-Montana border. Then, we are graciously taken to Waco, Texas for the birth of a baby. I think, and I will never know for sure, but I think this baby grew up to be Sean Penn.

The next hour and a half was a blur of three boys playing and three boys being yelled at by Brad Pitt and three boys loving their mother. Then, one of the boys (the one who may have grown up to be Sean Penn) snuck into a neighbor's house and stole some lingerie. This was before he shot his brother (who also could've grown up to be Sean Penn) with a BB gun. All of that happened before Brad Pitt lost his job and took a job that no one else wanted.

The one boy, the maybe Sean Penn boy, spends a lot of the film praying and asking God if he's real and then also if God can help him be good.

There's very little dialogue in the film, which is fine by me and from just an art standpoint, the movie is really pretty, but...I have no idea what it was about. Like, zero ideas.

At the end of the movie, Sean Penn walks through a door frame in the desert and then meets up with his family on the beach. His mom is there and she does a ballet routine with another woman, who might be an angel. Or maybe just a friend-- I can't be sure.

And spoiler alert: it was over after that.

Questions left unanswered: What the F? What the hell? What the what? What was up with that dinosaur? Did anybody in this movie have a name?